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Patch A39
Our Motto: "Pets aren't people, too"
Estimated Release: Just After A38
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* COMPATIBILITY: Reasonable. Be sure to check your setting of "Avoid Modified Quest Files" (in the FILE menu) You want to be sure to have that turned ON so you don't get marked a cheater in the NEXT version release.

NOTE: Skin transfers are not fully compatible with older versions.

* MONSTERS NO LONGER CAST BOOK SPELLS. There are these 'extra spells' which are only used on spellbound items and not intended for regular spellcasters. I accidentally let the monsters cast them and am withdrawing that.

* SERVER LOAD ENHANCEMENTS. I Dream of the day when 32 people can play on my server without the lag being TOO horrible. We're actually getting close to that now. The biggest bandwidth consumer is all that quick-clicking in the same spot to stimulate a monster attack. I still hope to convince the masses to embrace a different metaphor (f'nok is writing up a suggestion at this very moment), but I am also putting in a little kludge. This kludge just puts a limit on how many of those quick clicks get sent to the other players. You still see all the clicks on your own screen. Other people don't see you click more than once every 2 seconds. Which makes things look 'laggy' to them even when they aren't. Which is sort of ironic in a way.

* LURCH BROTHERS ARE NO LONGER CALLED THAT. I think they are now "the masters" or something like that. My apologies to Lurch for bringing other player's antagonism to him. That wasn't my intention.

* PET DEATHS PAY PROPER XP. 'nuff said.

* CURSOR DOESN'T GO WACKY ON BUTTON BAR. The button bar alng the bottom of the screen didn't used to have a default cursor, so if you moved from a special cursor to that region the special cursor stayed.

* MAP WINDOW HAS SPECIAL "NO WALK" CURSOR. When you are pointing at terrain which you cannot walk on with your current boots, you get a special 'X' cursor. Also, I added range checking in another routine which needed it (which would have contributed to getting stuck in walls, as it were)

* CLICKS ON IMPASSABLE TERRAIN ARE IGNORED. I don't bother putting you into motion if you click while the special X cursor is up.

* TAME IS MORE EFFECTIVE. Your chance success now increases by 5% per level (up from 3% per level), so you are 100% effective when you are only 20 levels above target.

* DEBUFF SPELLS MORE RELIABLE. Your chance is now 75% effective against an opponent at the same level for the spells: POISON, SAP, CONFUSE, CHARM, PARALYZE, WISDOM, STRENGTH, STAMINA, AGILITY AND DEXTERITY (up from 40% before) with a 3% per level increase. (25 levels above you is 0% ineffective)

* JEDI MIND TRICKS MORE RELIABLE. Your chance is now 60% effective (up from 40%) against an opponent at the same level fot the spells: STUN, GAG, NUMB, SLEEP. (20 levels above you is still immune) with 3% per level enhancement.

* ADDED A STERN WARNING ABOUT AVOIDING MODIFIED QUEST FILES. I'm just preparing the way here. Pretty soon it will mark your character as a cheater THE INSTANT YOU DISABLE "avoid modified quest files" Not this version, but soon. So, to play together without being marked as cheaters, you will need to have the same version of the world in question. This would be a good time to turn this feature back on... (I mean, you should be running in "avoid" mode all the time, unless you are developing your own world)

* NO LONGER SAYS "ghost leaves your party" WHEN GHOST STOPS HAUNTING YOU. I wonder how long it was doing that, anyway?

* FOUR NEW BUDDY HATS. Thanks to LGH for a gentle nag and some good ideas (none of which I was able to do justice to), there are four new buddy categories (these don't have any special chat FX, they mean whatever you want them to mean): Moon (a half moon), Topper (a top hat - sort of), Flower (a daisy), and Cipher (a question mark). Enjoy. That's probably all the hats I can support, by the way (eight total - well nine if you include bare-headed!).

* SKIN XFER IS DIFFERENT. Partially in preparation for a possible skin server, I changed the protocol a bit. You won't be able to share skins with people running older versions. (although they might be able to get a copy of YOUR skin... no promises)

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